So, in the previous video in this series I talked about “Whatever Happened to the
Man of Tomorrow,” the “imaginary story” that wrapped up Superman’s pre-Crisis
era and allowed him to have an ending and some closure. That story was written by Alan Moore,
but if you watched that video you may remember I mentioned that editor Julius
Schwartz originally wanted someone else to write it: Jerry Siegel.
That was an obvious choice — as the co-creator of Superman alongside Joe Shuster, having Siegel
write what was being conceived of as “the last Superman story” would have carried a lot of
weight symbolically. Who better to write the last Superman story than the guy who wrote the first
one? That was Schwartz’s reasoning, and it made sense. But, there’s another very good reason why,
were it not for contractual complications that prevented him from doing it, Jerry Siegel would
probably have written one hell of a last Superman story, and that reason is: he’d already done it.
The first “last Superman story” was published in Superman number one-forty-nine, the November 1961
issue. Written by Siegel, penciled by Curt Swan — who also penciled “Whatever Happened to the
Man of Tomorrow” twenty-five years later — and inked by George Klein, the story is titled “The
Death of Superman,” and is told in three parts, the first of which is called “Lex Luthor, Hero”.
Like “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow,” this is established
in the opening narration as an imaginary story — “which may never actually happen,
but then again may!” It begins in the yard of a prison where Lex Luthor is an inmate. Luther
passes a gang of prisoners working on the rock pile and notices that one of the rocks is glowing.
Strategic genius that he is, Luthor spins around and immediately punches a guard,
knowing that he will be assigned to work on the rock pile the next day as punishment. When that
very thing happens, Luthor collects a small sample of the glowing rock and takes it back
to his cell, where he deduces that it must be a meteorite containing the mysterious Element Z.
Luthor talks the warden into letting him work in the prison’s medical lab, and within twenty-four
hours he’s used Element Z to synthesize a cure for cancer. The warden congratulates Luthor on
his discovery, declaring that from now on he will be celebrated instead of living in infamy,
and predicting that he will win the Nobel prize! But Lex insists that he didn’t cure cancer for
praise or reward — he just wants to help people and atone for the evil he’s done in the past.
In the outside world, everyone is impressed by the news of Luthor’s cancer cure, including Clark
Kent, who changes into Superman and flies into outer space, finding and compressing
smaller asteroids containing Element Z into a great boulder, which he brings back to Earth
and presents to the United Nations so that more cancer cures can be produced. Then, he visits
the parole board and speaks on Luthor’s behalf, convincing them to release Luthor from prison.
Superman and Lex Luthor shake hands and promise to put their old conflict behind them. Luthor
even has Superman fly them to his old supervillain hideout, and destroy the statues of Lex’s heroes
Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Captain Kidd, and Al Capone. Seems like Luthor really has
turned over a new leaf! He sells off his hideout and rents a laboratory in an office building to
continue his Element Z research out in the open. Lex announces that his next project will be to
cure heart disease, but he’s no sooner made it than he’s visited by Duke Garner and Al Mantz,
two crooks from his criminal days. Garner and Mantz aren’t impressed by Luthor’s reformation,
and they offer him a pretty straightforward deal: either Lex kills Superman, or they kill him.
As chapter two of the story, “Luthor’s Super-Bodyguard,” begins, Lex refuses to go
along with Garner and Mantz. The crooks draw their guns, but before they can shoot, Superman swoops
in to the rescue. After disposing of Garner and Mantz, Superman gives Lex a signal watch — like
the one his pal Jimmy Olsen has — so that Lex can call for help whenever he’s in trouble.
The signal watch proves to be a valuable tool for Luthor, who uses it to call Superman to thwart
several more underworld assassination attempts. Superman has to save Lex’s life so often that he
confides to Supergirl that he’s worried he won’t be able to keep it up, that eventually one of
the crooks trying to kill Lex will succeed, depriving the world of a great scientist.
Superman discusses the problem further with Supergirl, and soon hits on the obvious solution:
obviously, the thing to do is build a satellite laboratory in outer space where
Luthor can work without fear of being murdered by gangsters. So, that’s what Superman does.
But even that doesn’t discourage the crooks. Like, these guys seriously want to kill Lex
Luthor. So much that they launch a missile at the orbital laboratory. Superman stops
the missile in time, and constructs a shield around the satellite that will
withstand the blast of a hydrogen bomb in order to protect it from future missile
attacks. Superman also informs Lex that his signal watch doesn’t work in outer space,
so if he ever needs help he can fire this emergency rocket, which is molded to look
like Lex, because this is the Silver Age, where sometimes rockets look like people just because.
A week later, Superman spots the emergency rocket and races to the satellite. When he
arrives and asks what’s wrong, Lex answers, “Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. For me.” Then,
he reveals what he’s been working on aboard the satellite all this time:
a green kryptonite ray projector. It bombards Superman with kryptonite rays,
weakening him. Luthor straps Superman to a table, laughing over how easy it was to
convince Superman that he’d reformed when, in fact, he was just as evil as he’d ever been.
So evil that he even abducted Lois Lane, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen and locked them in a room
behind a thick glass window so they could bear witness to the death of their friend.
Superman struggles against his restraints as Luthor turns up the power on the kryptonite
projector and explains that he used Element Z to create a cancer cure in order to convince
the parole board to release him from prison. He pretended to go straight to fool Superman,
and even allowed himself to become a target of the underworld — those assassination attempts
were legitimate — in order to convince Superman that his change of heart was genuine — all of
it to create the opportunity for this moment, the moment when Lex Luthor can finally kill Superman.
Finally, Superman stops struggling and lies still. Lex performs a few tests to check for
the usual Silver Age stuff — making sure Superman’s not just pretending to be dead,
making sure this is the real Superman and not a robot, you know the drill — then turns to Lois,
Jimmy and Perry and pronounces Superman dead.
Lex lands his satellite on Earth — wow, Superman really went all out when he built that thing,
huh? — drops off his hostages, along with Superman’s body, telling them,
“You can have Superman back now that he’s dead! Ha ha!”
I mean, that’s considerate of him! He didn’t have to do that!
Then, Luthor uses the satellite’s radio to announce to the entire planet that
he has killed Superman. The public mourns, the gangsters who had been
trying to kill Luthor celebrate, and Luthor himself declares that,
with Superman out of the way, his next goal is nothing less than to take over the world!
As chapter three begins, mourners from all over the world and even across the galaxy file past to
pay their respects as Superman lies in state. Lois sobs, thinking to herself of how much she loved
him. Lana Lang has similar thoughts, reflecting on her time as Clark Kent’s childhood friend,
and how her youthful crush on him eventually grew into true love. Even Krypto the Super Dog stops
in to say goodbye. So does Supergirl, in her secret identity, and the Legion of Superheroes,
and, in a wonderful detail that reminds us just how goddamn weird the Silver Age was,
so do the identical Superman robots, who watch on a monitor from the Fortress of Solitude.
He’ll never need them to gaslight his friends to protect his secret identity again. [sniff]
I’m sorry, just give me a second . . .
Meanwhile, Luthor is celebrating with the mobsters who only a few days before
had been spending a fortune to try and kill him. Luthor shows them a painting
of the scene of Superman’s death and entertains them with the story of how he fooled Superman,
and how Superman struggled in vain until he turned green and
died. Everyone’s having a great time — until Superman smashes through the wall!
Everyone is shocked, until moments later when the intruder removes her
Superman costume to reveal herself to be Supergirl! She arrests Luthor for
murder and declares to the rest of the crooks that their good times are over,
because she has all of Superman’s powers and she’s going to pick up right where he left off!
Supergirl’s first order of business is shrinking herself and Lex and going to the bottle city of
Kandor, kept inside the Fortress of Solitude. Because Luthor killed a Kryptonian, he is
to be judged by a Kryptonian court. The entire world watches on TV as Lex Luthor
is brought to trial in the bottle city of Kandor for the murder of Superman. Luthor
stands in the courtroom and watches as witness after witness testifies
against him. He seems confident, despite the damning testimony. He has a plan.
When it’s his turn to testify, Luthor pleads guilty — I guess Kryptonian courts do things
in a different order than we do, huh? The judge sentences Luthor to the Phantom Zone,
but he makes a counter offer: if the court releases him, he’ll build an enlarger ray
to return the shrunken city to its original size. Lex is certain they’ll go for this deal,
but the judge shocks him by flat-out refusing, declaring that the people of Kandor don’t make
deals with murderers. The executioner activates the Phantom Zone projector, and Luthor is
instantly banished to the Phantom Zone, where he is sentenced to remain for all eternity.
Not only do Kryptonians courts do things in a different order, they also do not screw
around! You get sentenced to the Phantom Zone and BAM! You are in the Phantom Zone, buddy!
Say hi to General Zod for me!
Soon after, Supergirl, with Krypto by her side, flies over Metropolis on what had been Superman’s
usual patrol. They pass by a giant statue that’s been raised in memory of Superman,
and Supergirl thinks of the great sorrow she feels at the death of her cousin,
who she calls “the strongest, kindest, most powerful human being I’ve ever known.”
And the story ends with a reassuring but strangely qualified caption,
urging the reader not to be too sad, because after all this is only an imaginary story — it’ll never
actually happen — probably — like, the chances are a million to one we’d ever kill Superman for
real! Ha ha ha ha! Can you imagine how desperate we’d have to be to try a gimmick like that?!
Anyway. It doesn’t have the power or the poetry of “Whatever Happened to the Man of
Tomorrow,” and it’s nowhere near as satisfying a conclusion to the life and adventures of Superman,
but Jerry Siegel’s “The Death of Superman” still has a lot to offer, especially if you’re a fan of
the Silver Age, as I am. Like Alan Moore in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow,”
Jerry Siegel does a good job of pulling threads from across Superman’s history and gathering
them together to give his story a cumulative and conclusive feel. It feels appropriate that Luthor
would be judged by the court of the bottle city of Kandor, and that his punishment would
be banishment to the Phantom Zone — there’s just something that feels right about that.
Likewise, the ending, with Supergirl assuming the mantle of Earth’s protector
feels fitting — Superman is gone, but in his place his cousin can now fulfill her destiny as a great
hero. And because Supergirl is there, ready to fight on, the story ends on a hopeful note,
despite the cruel murder of Superman that takes place only a few pages earlier.
I’ve also got to give Jerry Siegel credit for conceiving a master plan
for Lex that not only makes him seem like the most bottomlessly evil bastard ever,
but in its way is also just a grim as anything in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow.”
I mean, give it up for Lex both seizing opportunity when it presented itself,
and playing the long game like a true mastermind here. By pure chance he discovers
a bit of meteorite in a prison rock pile and says to himself, “I know just what I’ll do:
I’ll use this meteorite to cure cancer, leverage the goodwill from that to get
out of prison, befriend Superman at the cost of alienating every bad guy on the planet,
spend months as the target of a vengeful underworld trying to kill me in order to
remove any doubt from Superman’s mind that I’ve really turned over a new leaf, and then, finally,
when he no longer has any reason to suspect me, turn on my kryptonite ray and kill him!”
The term “evil genius” gets thrown around a lot, but this time it really is applicable. But,
it takes more than genius — it takes commitment. Good for you,
Lex, you made a plan and you stuck to it — you murdering piece of shit.
And as for the exact circumstances of that murder — Siegel’s “Death of Superman” doesn’t
have the body count of Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow,” but
it’s still pretty upsetting, both in its execution and its implications.
Look at how Lex kills Superman: he zaps him with the kryptonite ray, straps him to a table,
turns up the power . . . and that’s it. The plan goes off without a hitch. Superman doesn’t fight
back, doesn’t even have a chance to fight back. To put it in pro wrestling terms,
there’s no hope spot — once Lex reveals his deception and activates the ray,
there’s never even a moment where it looks like Superman is going to break loose and turn this
around. He just . . . lies there and dies. And stays dead. That’s it, that’s the end of Superman.
And, Lex’s plan is successful because Superman trusts him,
because Superman believes him, and gives him a second chance. Superman’s optimism,
his open-mindedness, his determination to see the good in everyone — these are some of his
noblest qualities, and they are the qualities Lex exploits — successfully — to kill him.
I don’t know about you, but for me — Jesus, that’s some dark stuff!
It’s just that you might not notice it at first, because it’s told in that playful,
kinda zany Silver Age style. But much like the idyllic small town in a David Lynch movie,
a peak beneath the surface reveals horrors that will trouble you the rest of your life.
So that’s neat!
Of course, even in the Silver Age, it’s pretty much impossible to tell a story
where Superman actually dies — and stays dead — without it being upsetting. If anything,
I admire Siegel for just facing up to that instead of trying too hard to soften the blow. “You want
a story where Superman dies? Well here ya go, choke on this!” he seems to be saying.
Thankfully for us, Superman is never really dead. There’s always another issue, another episode,
another story. As a character, as an idea, he’ll outlive all of us, and hopefully multiple
generations to come, too. No matter what his fate is in this story, or what it may be in
any other story, immortality is always among the superpowers of the best Superman ever.